Argument: Children always benefit from two parents, gay or straight

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Supporting quotations

Sears and Hirsch. "Gay Marriage: Pro and Con." December 2nd, 2003: "Numerous studies confirm that children of single parents fare less well than children in two-parent homes in almost every respect - they are more likely to end up poor, addicted to drugs, uneducated, unemployed, and incarcerated...Out-of-wedlock births increased more than 500 percent from 1960 to 2000. Add in soaring divorce rates, and close to 50 percent of children spend at least part of their childhood in a single-parent home. Given this, shouldn't conservatives embrace same-sex marriage, which leads to more children raised in stable two-parent homes? You might expect them to applaud the court's reasoning in Goodridge. 'Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones,' the majority wrote. 'It is central to the way the Commonwealth . . . ensures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds.'"